


Goodnight, My Someone

by ohthewhomanity (katzsoa)



Series: And You'll Have A Place In It [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Musical References, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, adults acknowledging the awfulness of a situation for once, supportive family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-17 05:41:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16089212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katzsoa/pseuds/ohthewhomanity
Summary: A story of panic attacks, pianos, and positive found-family relationships.





	1. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena calls for help.

Lena shut the bathroom door behind her, a little harder than she’d meant to, but her hands were shaking too much for her to be careful. At any rate, it was closed. She was alone. She had time.

She slowly slid down along the wall to the floor, something more reliable than her legs, and tried to get her breathing under control. But her lungs weren’t holding up their end of the bargain, and her throat wasn’t cooperating either; something had squeezed it shut. She could feel the squeezing in her chest, too; her heart stumbled against it with an irregular beat, slamming against her head as it fought to escape her ribs.

Her vision was too wobbly. She shut her eyes, and tears squeezed out from under her eyelids, escaping despite her will. She went from sitting, to kneeling, to lying with her face pressed into the bathmat, her fingers digging into the fabric and the tile beneath it. It hardly felt real. She hardly felt real.

She knew what a panic attack was, thanks to the least-unhelpful school counselor she’d ever had. She knew how they came and went. She just needed to stay away long enough for it to go, so she could take her broken body and build herself up again.

She just needed to wait.

She just needed to wait…

* * *

_Lena shoved open the little window and pulled herself through, her dripping clothes creating a puddle around her feet as she plopped onto the floor. Above her, the window swung shut again, muffling a roll of thunder._

_She stood there for a minute, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. It was a small room, no furniture except some chairs folded against the opposite wall._

_This was the old theater house the school bus passed. She’d never been inside. Now it was her escape from the rain, along her escape from everyone else._

_Was this far enough away? How soon would someone come looking for her? Would they even care to?_

_The storm rumbled again, and for a second lightning lit up a large mirror covering one of the walls. Lena shivered. Maybe the thunder would be less loud further away from the outside walls._

_She followed a hallway, went up some stairs, and pushed her way through a curtain – and there she was, in the theater proper. An enormous room, rows of seats facing the stage on which she stood, lit only by a solitary white bulb on a simple metal lamp at center stage._

_Such a stark difference from the crowded little house she’d fled._

_A panel on the stage floor creaked under her footstep, and the sound bounced all around her. She jumped, and knew the hand was about to close around her neck, she’d been too loud and woken him up and she was going to pay –_

_And if he hadn’t heard her yet, surely he’d hear her heart, it was so loud, in her chest, her throat, her ears –_

_She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to hold in the pounding, trying to swallow down the bile rising to her mouth, trying to keep herself inside herself when there was so much space in the room to get lost in. It was too big, too vast, too much, she’d be found here, she had to get out, had to get_ in.

_A grate in the wall beckoned, and she pried it free, tucking herself into the rectangular metal piping. She was already tall for her age, but still too skinny, and that served her well here, allowed her to fit, to brace her hands against the walls in a futile attempt to make them stop shaking, and wait._

_Her own breathing, like the snorting and spouting of a train, drowned out the sound of the storm in her ears. And every gasp was agony, squeezed through a too-tight throat. Her heart jolted against her ribs and lungs, and she whimpered from the pain of it. It was broken, it had to be, everything inside of her was broken, she couldn’t fix it, she wanted to run, she wanted to scream for help, she couldn’t, it wouldn’t come, she couldn’t._

_She would stay here in the darkness until either her heart and her lungs started working again or until she died, whichever came first._

_In that moment, she wouldn’t have minded the latter._

* * *

It wasn’t going away. Why wasn’t it going away? Everything was shaking, she couldn’t feel the fabric, she couldn’t feel her hands, they’d gone numb. Maybe it wasn’t just panic, maybe it was a heart attack, maybe she was going to die, for real, this time.

Oh god, she didn’t want to die.

“Help,” she croaked, in a voice tiny from lack of air and further muffled by the bathmat.

No one could hear that. Someone had to hear, to come save her. She needed – She couldn’t –

She tried again, forcing a shuddery gulp of air through her throat: “ _Help me.”_

The door opened, and someone stepped through to kneel by her head. A much larger hand covered her own, and Lena clung to it like a lifeline.

“Lena. I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Beakley’s voice. Lena felt a surge of shame. But then, was there _anyone_ she wanted to see her like this?

“I can’t breathe,” she gasped.

A moment of silence. She could practically feel Beakley’s eyes scanning her, she did feel Beakley’s other hand touch her forehead, brush her hair, damp with sweat, out of her face.

“Try again for me,” said Beakley, her tone as firm and to-the-point as always. “Slow and steady. In, and out.”

Lena tried. She wanted to. She couldn’t.

“I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying. Breathe with me. That’s your one job right now. Breathe in.” She sucked in air, slowly and fully, showing Lena how, and exhaled. “And out. Do it with me. In. And out.”

She kept talking to Lena, talking her through each deep, slow breath. And Lena tried again. And again. And gradually, she could. Gradually, her breathing softened and smoothed, and the tension slid out of her muscles, and the pounding went back to the ignorable volume a heartbeat was supposed to be.

“That’s more like it,” Beakley said. “Would you like to sit up now?”

“…yeah.”

Beakley helped her to an upright position, with her back and head resting against the wall.

“I’m right here,” she said again, and then stood, turning towards the sink and taking a small glass off of the shelf. Behind her, Lena made a vain effort to find some way to play all this off as not a big deal. But no, anything like that might turn Beakley off of coming to her aid again, and for once not having help seemed more frightening to Lena than being seen as needing help.

“Here.” Beakley passed Lena the cup of water, and sat down on the floor near her again, patiently watching to make sure that she drank it.

As she slowly sipped the water, a detail worked through the blur of Lena’s memory, to hold all of her focus now: she hadn’t heard Beakley’s footsteps in response to her call. And really, as loud as her breathing had been, there was no way her cry for help been loud enough for anyone in another part of the mansion to hear and come running.

“How long were you standing there listening?” said Lena.

Beakley gave her an odd look, but didn’t deny it.

“Long enough,” she said. “I heard you run for the bathroom, from the floor below. When you didn’t come out again, I wanted to check whether you were alright.”

“Well, you’ve got your answer.” Even now, Lena couldn’t help but be snarky. But by then Beakley knew her well enough to ignore it.

“Am I correct in guessing that this wasn’t your first panic attack?”

Lena nodded, clutching the glass with both hands in case she began shaking again. “It scared me more than the others,” she admitted. “I didn’t… I was hoping they wouldn’t happen anymore.”

“Do you know what set it off?”

Lena shrugged. “Bad train of thought. One into another, into another… And I didn’t have anything to distract me from it. I spiraled. And then I saw… I _thought_ I saw… it move. On its own.”

She didn’t have to say what “it” was. Her eyes betrayed the pronoun, flickering to and away from the dark gray shape she cast on the tile floor.

Beakley nodded slowly. “Perhaps you’re spending too much time alone.”

“I like alone. Alone and me get along just fine. Chilling in a mansion’s more my speed than crawling through tombs, or, whatever it is they’re doing out there, anyway.”

She didn’t mind that they’d left her behind. Really, she didn’t. She’d earned some time as a normal kid; she wasn’t interested in just pulling on another kind of crazy weirdness to replace the one she’d barely shed.

Really, she didn’t mind.

She couldn’t tell whether Mrs. Beakley believed her unspoken insistence.

“Then it’s time you found a hobby,” said Beakley. “And your cell phone doesn’t count.”

Lena smiled wryly. “Can’t think of anything I’m good at. Nothing that’d fly in your household, anyway.”

“Hm.” Beakley stood, smoothing out her apron. “Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

She made a motion as though to leave the bathroom, and Lena spoke up quickly to stop her: “Don’t tell anyone. About this.”

Beakley was silent for a long moment, half-turned towards the door.

“I won’t,” she finally said. “But only because I think that you should tell them yourself. Family is best able to help you when they know what battles you’re fighting.”

Lena sighed. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“Which reminds me – this morning, in yet another moment of forgetting that I am not, in fact, his secretary, Mr. McDuck told me to tell you that your wardship paperwork should be ready tomorrow, with the exception of your surname. Have you chosen one yet?”

“Webby helped me make a list,” said Lena. “We’ll narrow it down when she gets back.”

“Good. I’ll be downstairs. If you need anything.”

Lena nodded, and Beakley left, her footsteps gradually fading towards the nearest stairway. Lena sat and listened, to the footsteps, to her own breathing, to her heartbeat. All under control again. For now.

Her hands seemed steady enough to risk moving the glass, so she slowly got to her feet and turned on the sink, rinsing out the cup and setting it aside. Then she cupped her hands under the water and splashed herself in the face, trying to wipe away the tear-streaks and puffiness. It wouldn’t do much, but it felt better than doing nothing.

She hadn’t said “thank you.”

Should she have?

Beakley probably didn’t expect her to. Lena _had_ saved her life that one time.

But taking her in, letting her stay in the mansion – this was McDuck Manor, but it was undeniably Beakley’s house, there was no way that Scrooge’s promise was kept without her approval – that might have pushed the gratitude ball back into Lena’s court. Or, at least, to a neutral state, where nobody owed anyone anything.

Lena wasn’t sure how to even start saying “thank you” to anyone for anything, anyway.

She reached over and turned out the bathroom light, and spent a few long moments safe in the darkness before moving on to where shadows could follow her again.


	2. Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena finds a piano.

“Now _that’s_ living like you’re rich.”

Louie’s eyes were very wide, taking in every detail of the opulent yard. White marble fountains, flower-draped gazebos, even gilding on the stone walkway under their feet – if it was expensive and you could think of it, it was here.

“It’s waste, is what it is,” Scrooge snarled over his shoulder in the general direction of the five minors following him across the yard. “John D. Rockerduck never had to work a day in his life. He inherited all his wealth, and loves nothing more than showing it off. You’ll find few more despicable than him.”

“If you don’t like him, then why are you meeting with him?” said Huey.

“And why are you exposing us impressionable youngsters to all this ‘waste’ you don’t approve of?” Louie added, with finger quotes.

“I’m ‘exposing’ you to the world of business,” said Scrooge. “The vast and varied business operations of any one billionaire inevitably affect those of another. It pays to be aware of and to be able to negotiate around the strategies of your enemies.”

“Translation: sometimes the people rich enough to own the world have to come together and schmooze about what to do with it,” Lena chimed in from the back of the group. “You know, just to make sure that their plans to exploit the proletariat won’t get in each other’s way.”

Dewey and Webby laughed. Scrooge’s scowl deepened.

“We’ll have none of that, now,” he said, jabbing his cane in Lena’s direction. “Rockerduck’s always trying to get the best of me. You kids are here to observe and learn, not to make me seem a fool for dragging insolent youngsters around. Understood?”

Lena drew her fingers across the edge of her beak, pulling the imaginary zipper shut. The casual motion, a joking kind of obedience, covered up the nervous knot in her stomach.

She wasn’t _really_ concerned about upsetting or embarrassing Scrooge. He wouldn’t throw her out. This family forgave, and she was a part of it now – the paperwork was all signed, and everything. “Lena le Strange” was under the care of Scrooge McDuck until she legally came of age (which they were guessing would be in about three years).

She wasn’t worried about that.

Just a little uncertain of the new territory, that’s all.

Scrooge had made a point of inviting her along on this outing today, in a manner specific enough that she couldn’t figure out a way to say no, and so all morning a little voice in the back of her head had been trying to figure out _why._

A butler greeted them at the door, and ushered them through several more rooms, each more extravagant than the last.

None of them impressed Webby. “Everything’s so _new_ here,” she whispered, walking on her tiptoes to reach Lena’s ear. “You just know he had it all custom-hand-crafted in the last year. Nothing here was excavated from a thousand-year-old dungeon and brought back to the surface by cunningly evading the deathtraps left by the society who made it. It just doesn’t have the same appeal, you know?”

Lena supposed she’d have to take Webby’s word for it.

When they finally found Rockerduck, waiting for them in a room somewhat central to the mansion, Lena couldn’t help but be less than impressed. You could have summoned this guy to stand in for Scrooge at a police line-up, if your description was “rich old white duck in a suit.” All the same, there was something less “iconic” about his appearance. Maybe it was all the time Lena had spent listening to Webby gush about Scrooge that put a bias over how she saw Rockerduck. Or maybe it was the bowler hat. There really was no way to look impressive while wearing a bowler hat.

Rockerduck greeted Scrooge jovially enough, with a firm handshake and a grin – though Lena suspected that the smile was as fake as most of her frowns were. Everyone chose a different kind of mask to wear.

“McDuck, my good man!” said Rockerduck, adjusting his glasses as he peered at the line of children. “I don’t suppose this is a brood of assistants you’ve brought along?”

“I’m doing my part to instill a sense of work ethic in the next generation,” Scrooge said, sweeping a hand in front of the kids. “Something I’m sure you haven’t shirked your duties on at all, eh, Rockerduck?”

Lena thought, but did not say (her lips were zippered shut, after all, and that was a binding contract), that Scrooge didn’t need any help seeming insolent. Maybe he just didn’t want her stealing his thunder.

Rockerduck motioned them all towards a conference room, where the meeting about whatever-it-was-rich-enemies-talked-about would take place.

And Lena was going to follow the others through the doorway, really she was, except that something in this room caught her eye.

There, at the far end of the room, was a grand piano, its black frame polished to a near-reflective shine.

Lena, now alone, crossed over to the piano, her footsteps muffled by carpeting which might have been meant to dampen any echoes from the instrument – assuming that this thing was ever actually played. It wasn’t dusty; everything in this mansion was spotlessly clean in a way that would meet even Duckworth’s approval. But Lena had seen a used piano before, and there was something about it that this one didn’t seem to have. Maybe it was just here to let Rockerbeak show visitors that he could own one.

Without really thinking about what she was doing, Lena sat down on the piano bench, and began to play.

* * *

_People had come and gone from the old theatre all day, but no one had discovered Lena, tucked away as she was in the ventilation system. She didn’t dare emerge; any one of them was a phone call to someone who would take her “home.”_

_It was afternoon, now, and there was a rehearsal going on in the building. From what she’d overheard, it was for a play, a musical, a story about a con man. A fast-talker who made a living by convincing people to hand over their money and then skipping town before he delivered on his promises._

_Right now the con man’s actor was in a rehearsal room somewhere with the chorus, while a pair of actresses – a woman and a child – were on the stage below Lena, working with the music director. The woman, Lena had gathered, was the con man’s love interest. She was smart, she saw through the man’s fast-talk right away. But for some reason Lena couldn’t fathom, she fell for the guy anyway, even though she knew he was a liar. And even though the con man was only pretending to like her at first, as a part of his scheme, he ended up falling in love with her, too._

_Maybe Lena was missing some plot details, or maybe the story just didn’t make any sense._

_For now, the actresses were working on a scene in which the woman taught the child how to play a song on the piano. The music director was adamant that the child actually play the song (evidently, having a musician offstage cover for her was a less desirable option)._

_The child, probably something like Lena’s age (though she wasn’t about to try to guess, since she didn’t_ know _her own age), clearly had no clue what she was doing._

_They’d been at it for a better part of two hours. The piano was positioned directly below an air vent in the shafts Lena had been hiding in, so through the slats she could see the director’s fingers, pushing the white and black keys in the same specific order, over and over again._

_While she played, and tried to get the child actress to play, the other actress sang:_

_“Goodnight, my someone, goodnight, my love / Sleep tight, my someone, sleep tight, my love / Our star is shining its brightest light / For goodnight, my love, for goodnight…”_

_Sappy as heck._

_“It’s too haaaaard,” the child actress was moaning, her voice echoing through the theatre and into the ventilation shafts._

_But it didn’t seem that hard to Lena. It was steady, repetitive, like a three-part heartbeat. Comforting, strangely._

_She tapped her fingers against the vent, copying the motions of the teacher below – one two three, one two three. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the piano’s sounds were coming from her fingertips, that it was she who accompanied the singer._

_“True love can be whispered from heart to heart / When lovers are parted they say / But I must depend on a wish and a star / As long as my heart doesn’t know who you are…”_

* * *

The last note of the song faded away, and Lena was jolted back to the present by the sound of someone clapping. She turned around to see Webby hurrying across the carpet towards her, eagerly applauding. Behind Webby, the triplets had all poked their heads out of the conference room, with varying degrees of surprise and gratitude at having the meeting interrupted on their faces.

But what really drew Lena’s attention, and made her insides freeze up, was that Scrooge McDuck and John D. Rockerduck were standing in the doorway, watching as well.

“I didn’t know you could play piano!” Webby squealed, hopping up onto the piano bench next to Lena.

“I don’t, really.” Lena felt overly aware of everyone’s eyes on her, and suddenly very sure that she had done something wrong. “Just the one song. There was this girl, in a theatre… It’s no big deal.”

“Talented new ward you’ve got there, McDuck,” Rockerbeak said, which was better than the _why are you touching my piano, girl?!_ that Lena more-than-half-expected.

“That she is,” Scrooge replied, which was better than… well… Lena wasn’t sure what she’d expected his response to be.

Webby scooted up right next to her on the bench. “Play it again,” she said.

Now that, Lena expected. Webby always wanted to hear more.

She glanced back at the doorway, where the men stood. Scrooge nodded once.

So Lena played the song again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Lena observes a rehearsal of “Goodnight, My Someone” from Willson’s The Music Man. (Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp5IGR2JQqA)
> 
> So far the only performances of this I’ve ever seen have had someone offstage or in the orchestra pit play the piano for Amaryllis. I’ve always wanted to see it truly done live.


	3. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena gets a present.

“Lenaaaaaa…!”

Lena glanced up from her phone. Webby’s upside-down face was an inch from hers. Which was frankly impressive, given that Lena was sitting upright on the living room couch, so she could surmise that Webby was standing on the back of the couch behind her, bent over forwards as if neatly folded in two.

“Now that’s a spooky level of flexibility,” Lena commented.

“Come upstairs,” said Webby. “Uncle Scrooge wants to show you something!”

“Huh.” Lena turned off her phone screen. “Got any clues for me about what it is?”

“Nope! I want to! But nope! That’d spoil the surprise!”

“I see.” Lena wasn’t sure she wanted a surprise. She wasn’t on the whole a fan of them. You couldn’t prepare a safely cool-and-casual emotional reaction to a surprise. And she _really_ didn’t know what to expect from a _McDuck_ surprise.

But Webby was tugging at her hands now, and saying “Come on come on come on already let’s _goooo!_ ”, and there was really nothing Lena could do about it but get up and follow.

Webby led/dragged Lena out of the living room, up the stairs, and towards a room that Lena had yet to see Scrooge enter.

“What does Scrooge want to show me in your room?” Lena asked.

“ _Our_ room,” Webby corrected, giving Lena a not-so-little push towards the door. “Go and see before I mess up and tell you!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going!”

Lena took two steps into the room, and stopped again. She was very familiar by that point with the contents of the small-ish library below Webby’s loft, but even if she hadn’t been, it would have been very clear what object was new.

Scrooge McDuck was standing at the center of the room, next to a piano.

It wasn’t as shiny-fancy as the one in Rockerduck’s mansion, not even close. It had fewer keys, and its brown wood had clearly seen better days.

It was much more like the one she’d seen in the theatre all those years ago.

“There you are,” said Scrooge as Lena slowly approached. He waved a hand at the piano. “It’s in tune, as far as I can tell. After your little impromptu performance the other day, it seemed right that you should have one of your own.”

“This…” Lena’s voice came out too tiny. She cleared her throat and tried again. “This is mine?”

“Didn’t I just say so?” said Scrooge. “I intended it to be a birthday present, but seeing as I don’t know when your birthday is…”

“That’s okay.” Lena reached out to stroke the keys with a reverent hand. “I don’t know when it is, either.”

“Let’s call it a present for the heck of it, then,” said Scrooge. “But I expect you to practice. Every day. I found some music theory books as well, they’re in the bench. Work up from the basics and get more than that one song under your belt. Make it worth the expense... If nothing else, it’ll be a good distraction, when you need one.”

Lena’s hand paused on the keys. Either Scrooge was much more perceptive than she’d given him credit for (“smarter than the smarties” be damned, he hadn’t noticed a possessed shadow when it was crouched over his own _bed_ , for crying out loud), or Beakley hadn’t kept her promise of silence.

That… didn’t bother her as much as it might have, once.

Maybe she was starting to get used to this family thing.

So, to her own surprise as much as anyone else’s, when she opened her mouth, no sarcasm or snide comment emerged.

“Every day,” she said. “I can do that.”

She still wasn’t sure how to say “thank you,” but Scrooge smiled as though she had.

* * *

_Night had long since fallen on the theatre. The actors were gone, and the crew. Even the janitor had finished her work and left for the day._

_Still, Lena was cautious and quiet as she pushed the vent aside and lowered herself onto the stage._

_Her stomach complained. She should check the greenroom; the cast had had snacks during a break, and maybe some were left over. If there was nothing there, she’d have to consider leaving, finding food somewhere else, or risking going without for another night or two, surely she was strong enough to go that long without eating…_

_Or maybe it was time to go back to her current guardians, and face the music…_

_…_

_The music._

_Lena approached the piano where it still stood at center stage. Pulled along by some need even deeper-set than hunger, she climbed up onto the bench, placing her hands on the keys as she’d seen the little actress do._

_The first note she hit was wrong, and too loud. She flinched and held very still, listening to it echo around the theatre, waiting for the sound to draw someone’s attention._

_But no one came, and soon enough the only sound was the pounding of her own heart, gradually slowing._

_She tried again. This time, the note was correct. She closed her eyes, picturing the steps she’d watched repeated over and over that day, and copied them. Goodnight, my someone, goodnight, my love._

_As she continued to play uninterrupted, she gained courage, pressing the keys more loudly. Sleep tight, my someone, sleep tight, my love._

_“Our star is shining its brightest light / For goodnight, my love, for goodnight…”_

_When had she begun to sing aloud? Who cared? For once, it didn’t matter if she made noise. No one was watching. No one was listening._

_Except that something_ was _listening. Something in the back of her head, something connected to everything, something that loved and responded to riddles and rhymes._

_Something that she wasn’t supposed to reach out to. But it was always there. It was a part of her. How could she not use it?_

_“Sweet dreams, be yours dear, if dreams there be / Sweet dreams to carry you close to me…”_

_It wouldn’t do anything. It couldn’t do anything. But still she sang, out of some remnant of childish hope that life had yet to take away from this child, still she sent the words out into the universe, and asked it for a favor._

_“I wish I may and I wish I might / Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight…”_

_And she didn’t know, she couldn’t know anything but how the notes and the rhythm seemed to soothe her, to steady her breathing and slow her heartbeats, and surely there wasn’t anything particularly magical about that. It was just music._

_Just music._

_But at that moment, somewhere, in another city, in a too-big house, a little duck girl smiled in her sleep._

* * *

“I must say, I’m impressed.”

“What, you think I don’t know how to pick out a present?”

“Says the man who gave his nephews a bag of marbles when you first met.”

Scrooge smirked. “Careful, Bentina, lest you insult your employer.”

Beakley smiled to herself, her back turned as she placed the books back on the shelf she was re-alphabetizing.

A C-major scale reached their ears, muffled by the floor between the girls’ room above and this relatively small office.

“I can’t say I remember the last time we had live music in the mansion,” Scrooge mused, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. “It always seemed like a needless expense. Something to enjoy while mooching off some lavish affair of Glomgold’s.”

“And now?”

Scrooge tilted his head in a half-shrug. “It’s for a good cause.”

Beakley set the last book on the shelf, exhaling as she did so, and her whole body seemed to droop somewhat.

“It was infuriating,” she said. “Seeing her like that… That amount of stress does not belong on the shoulders of a teenager. If anyone.” Beakley shook her head, sitting down in a nearby chair. “I doubt we know the half of what she’s been through, and clearly no one ever taught her how to face it.”

“She’s here now,” said Scrooge, sitting in the chair opposite. “She has us to keep her safe, and to teach her better ways to face her shadows – for lack of a better word. Whatever the past has left her, she’ll grow beyond it.”

Beakley nodded once, firmly. “She will. She’s a tough one. But I swear, if anyone with any amount of responsibility for Lena’s upbringing comes within a mile of Duckburg, I’ll wring their neck with my bare hands. That includes Magica de Spell.”

A grim smile spread across Scrooge’s face. “You’ll have to get in line.”


End file.
